


here comes goodbye (here comes the last time)

by someassemblingrequired



Series: here comes goodbye (every sleepless night) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Again, Character Death, F/M, Gen, look i angsted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someassemblingrequired/pseuds/someassemblingrequired
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What’s it like over there, Саша?” </p>
<p>“There’s no more goodbyes, папа."</p>
<p>--- </p>
<p>Darcy Lewis says goodbye to two very, very important people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here comes goodbye (here comes the last time)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [Here Comes Goodbye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17VudJ6lr4k) by Rascal Flatts and the associated video.

\----

_“Are you ready?”_

\----

 There was a black smudge beneath her left eye, where her shaking hand fucked up the usually-meticulous eyeliner she was trying ( _tried_ , and failed) to apply. Her eyes narrowed, and she frowned at the offending black mark, dabbing at it with concealer. It was easier to do it that way, she decided, rather than painstakingly reapply all of her make up. Easier to patch something up, she thought bitingly, than to rebuild all of it.

Her hair normally fought with her (she was 35 now, and she still hadn’t managed to tame the unruly brown locks that had initially attracted him to her, ten years ago), but it seemed as though it was insistent on not cooperating that day. As she tried ( _tried_ , and failed) to coax it up into a bun, it snagged and caught on her fingers, snapped the hair band she attempted to secure it with, and rejected the bobby pins and hairspray until she finally let out an angry, exasperated puff of breath and let it cascade loose down her shoulders.

_“It looks nice that way, doll.”_

The words were so familiar that her head snapped towards the door, eyes wide, though she _knew_ , knew in her head, that no one had spoken. (Her heart constricted, and she bit back a small sob as the doorframe remained as empty as it had been moments previously. (As empty as it would always remain.)

Any reprimand would have died on her lips, had someone been standing there. The spark that should have been in her eyes was… _lacking_ ; like a flame in a thunderstorm, she flickered in and out of existence, the vibrance she was known for all but extinguished in the face of ( _yet another_ ) premature loss in her life.

“Darcy?”

This time, the voice was real, and the pale imitation of Darcy Lewis looked up at the waif of a scientist standing in her doorway. Behind her, the God of Thunder loomed, head ducked so he could fit more comfortably in her low-ceilinged hall.

“Come on, it’s time.”

A last look in the mirror, a swipe of pin-up red (red, red, _so much red_ ) lipstick across her downturned mouth, and a frown.

Darcy Lewis stood up and followed Jane Foster from thei-- _her_ room.

(Hers, not theirs, just hers now.)

( _Theirs_.) 

\----

_“папа?”_

_“Hey, kiddo. I missed you.”_

\----

Snow fell from the sky, and cars drove along side them, and everything else, everyone else, seemed to go on as normal.

The world didn’t stop spinning.

(How had the world not stopped spinning? How were people still going on? Didn’t they _realise_ …)

It hurt more to realise that only one other person in the world knew exactly what she was feeling. (The rest of the world didn’t even know, they didn’t realise…) Her fingers squeezed tighter in his hand, and in her peripheral vision, she saw his blonde head turn down towards her, a mask firmly in place over his true face. When she had gotten into the car, realised it was just the two of them in the back of the SUV, realised everyone else was giving them space and going separately, she had seen the mask slip ever so slightly.

She knew her own had too.

“Darcy…”

Steve Rogers could mask his emotions in his face, could bury his feelings deep under layers of the same ice he had been encased in for seventy years, but when he looked at his best friend’s wife, he couldn’t keep the pain out of his voice.

“Steve.”

Her own voice cracked as the stony-faced agent drove them through the snow, through New York, out of the city, and up, up, _up_ , to the Connecticut home where she-- they had spent all of their free time.

Four hours passed, and neither of them said a word.

\----

_“I thought…”_

_“I know. I know.”_

\----

The snow crunched beneath their feet as they looked at the fresh layer over the recent grave. They had buried him two weeks ago. Neither of them had been there.

(Steve had been in the hospital, six broken ribs, one leg completely shattered, and what should have been a life altering spinal injury. Darcy had been so hysterical at the news that she hadn’t left her bed; refused to attend her husbands funeral. Refused to visit the little house in Connecticut that she loved so much. She had sworn up a storm when they’d told her, screamed obscenities at Phil, cursed James, broken plates and told Steve she never wanted to see him again.)

It took her a week to come to terms with it. To come to terms with it, never to get over it. 

“I wasn’t supposed to outlive either of them,” came the broken woman’s voice. “Not Sasha, not James.”

A warm hand settled on the small of her back and that was enough for her. She nodded softly and took the few steps from the tree to the gravestones, one larger, one smaller, both bearing the same last name.

“I should have been dead before he got his first grey hair. I should have died and he should have lived a hundred years afterwards. Both of them should have. They were special, Steve.” Her voice cracked and she looked at her husband’s best friend. “They were supposed to live for years. Like you.”

His face said it all, and finally, _finally_ , her resolve broke. Her throat tightened, and a noisy sob wrenched itself out. She dropped to her knees and put her hand on the newest stone, fingers tracing the recently carved lettering.

“I miss you,” she whispered, voice tight. “I miss you so much, damnit, you fucking asshole.” Tears ran down her pale face, dripping from her nose onto the snow at her knees. “Christ, James, this wasn’t what was supposed to happen.”

Her words were punctuated by heaving sobs, and after a few moments, she buried her face in her hands, sobbing over the headstones before her. Steve didn’t move, simply stood there, stony faced, as Darcy let the all-consuming grief out.

It was like a dam, all of the things she’d felt spilling out in sob-broken rants and bitter words. She told him about what she’d said to Phil, about how she’d refused to believe them, about how she’d been waiting with take out from their favourite shitty Chinese restaurant when she got the news. She told him about how it felt like all the air had been sucked out of her chest, about how the blood left her face and she felt weightless and thoughtless and everything-less. _Less_ because he was gone, and she was here, and he wasn’t with her.

Less, because she couldn’t imagine him not being there anymore.

She told him that it wasn’t fair, that she was angry, that she’d forgive him but it would take time, take months, maybe years, before she wasn’t angry, before she didn’t want to curse his name. She told him she hated him, hated what he had done to her, hated what had happened.

And she told him she loved him, loved him more than she had thought possible, loved him more than she thought she could love anyone. Loved him so much that losing him was like losing a part of herself. 

“And… You tell our boy that I miss him so much, James. Tell him Mommy misses him, and she’ll--” Her voice broke. “She’ll see him someday. Tell him that, from me.”

_\----_

_“What’s it like over there, Саша?”_

_“There’s no more goodbyes, папа.”_

_\----_

**James Buchanan Barnes**

1 January 1917 - 15 December 2025

Husband. Father. Soldier. Hero.

 

**Aleksandr Isaac Barnes**

5 August 2015 - 8 January 2022

Forever young. Forever in our hearts.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sorry. I was watching the video instead of, y'know, doing revision, and this happened.


End file.
